End of year weigh in

This morning's weigh in was a pleasant surprise.  I'm holding steady at 230, with very little effort (and a lot of Christmas chocolate).  I started this journey on April 18, 2010 when my weight peaked at 254.

In 621 days, or 20 months, I've managed to lose 24 pounds.  It's not spectacular or amazing, but I'm okay with that.  I'm more okay with the fact that I haven't gone back up and over the 250 mark during that whole time.

My goal for 2012 is to just keep truckin'.  Sure I have an ultimate end weight in mind, but I focus on things in 10 pound increments to keep it achievable.

So 220 here I come!

I am really struggling right now.  I have zero motivation.  I have been eating chips, candy and cookies with gay abandon!  I have no self control.  I haven't bothered to track my calories or even seem to care what I eat.

I'm scared to weigh myself since I wouldn't be surprised if I had gained back all 25 pounds that I've lost over the last year.

But yesterday I was huffing and puffing and struggling to walk up a hill, and not even a big hill.  It woke me up to the fact that I really need to get this under control if I want to live a  long and healthy life with my family.

So today, I try again!!

Having Mom here for 2 weeks was great motivation.  I managed to lose 2 pounds while she was visiting, and that's with eating out a lot and even having lobster!

She's been gone a week and I'm trying to stay the course.  I did not lose any weight this week, but at least I did not gain any.  As always I struggle with exercising.  I either don't have the time or the motivation.  But today, I dropped Liam off at school and went for a 45 minute walk.  It's a start!

Numbers

Numbers

There are a lot of numbers when you are getting into shape.  How many calories in that cookie?  How many inches is your waist?  What do you weigh? How long did you exercise.

I now have a new favorite number.

For the first time in my conscious memory, I bought a pair of size 18 jeans! And they fit!  And I don’t have to lie down and use a coat hanger to do them up.  WIN!

It's so hard to get back on the wagon again!  I'm down to 235 and have been holding steady there for several weeks.  I have made no effort at dieting or exercising and I feel like crap.  We had access to friends' cars for 2 weeks and ate a lot of take out during that time.  Add to that the fact that it has rained for nearly 30 days straight and it would seem that everything is conspiring against me.

BUT

we bought Liam a new bike last weekend and I got mine out, pumped up the tires and had a great ride with him that afternoon.  I'm hoping planning on getting out with him more often!!

New diet plan

Get tooth pulled.  OUCH!  I don't see me eating much in the next couple of days!

Another 2 pounds!

Yeah!  I've made it to 240.  That's 2 pounds a week for the last 4 weeks.  I don't feel hungry and I'm not denying myself anything - as evidenced by the Easter Cream Egg wrapper sitting next to me.

Styes

I now have another sty, in the same spot on the same eyelid.  This is either the 4th one since before Christmas, or the same one that has never completely cleared up.  They hurt like heck, my eyelid is swollen so my vision is off, and I'm getting headaches from it.

And it turns out the styes and other skin infections occur more frequently in people with diabetes, making me wonder, once again, if I've moved from pre-diabetic into actual diabetic.

Sunday Weigh in

Yeah!!!!  I lost another 2 pounds!!  I actually got in 2 exercise sessions this week.  1 with the new ankle weights and 1 30-minute dance session on the Wii.  I also have not been denying anything, as evidenced from the Cinnabon I had for breakfast yesterday.  As long as I keep the whole day around the 1500-1800 calorie mark AND I get in some exercise, I should continue to move in the right direction.  This means that I have lost 6 pounds since January.  Given the upheaval of January, I'm feeling pretty darn great about this!

Weigh in and update

Weigh In:

WooHoo!  I lost 2 pounds this week, putting me at 244.  I'm still thinking in terms of losing 10  pounds at a time, instead of the horrible thought of having to lose 80 pounds (!). So my current goal is to get to 238, so only 6 more pounds to go.

Doctor Appointment update:

It's official.  I am pre-diabetic.  My blood sugar was 6.0.  Turns out anything over 5.6 when you are not diabetic and have been fasting is bad.  The Dr looked at my chart from when I was in the ER and they had a blood sugar of 6.6 at 5:30 AM, so another very high fasting level.

The only steps we are going to take for the next 6 months is to keep dieting, get exercising and be aware of what I am eating.  Then we will repeat a blood sugar test to see if it's come down.

Food:

I've been making good food choices this week! (as is evidenced by the 2 pound weight lose) I track my food and calories in Fitness Pal.  For me, this is key.  It lets me see how much I have had and makes me more conscious of portion sizes.  To help with this, we bought a new digital food scale.  Portion control is really my worst habit and one I'm trying to break. My goal is to stay under the 1800 calorie mark each day, and this week I have been closer to 1550.  And bonus:  I haven't felt hungry or deprived!

Exercise:

It's still not really happening. I'm walking more and taking the stairs, but I know that this isn't enough.  I haven't even done the Wii Dance game since we've been back from Ontario.  I just don't know how to get motivated to do more.  It seems counter-intuitive, but not having a car makes it hard to get out and get exercise.  By the time I get home from work at 17:30, it's too late to go to the gym/pool because it would take more then an hour of travel time on the bus.  I can't go anywhere before work for the same reason.  Saturdays are my day with Liam, and I'm going to try to see if he and I can start swimming together at least once a week.  And Sundays end up being cleaning days or just crash and relax days.  Why is it so hard to find a half hour 3 times a week to work out?  Maybe because I don't know how to work out or what I want to do. 

Starting over...again

The last 2 weeks have been a complete write off.  Dad died last week, so I've had 2 whirlwind trips to Ontario.  While I eat fairly well when I'm at my Mom's, I also seem to drink alcohol a lot more.  I did a lot more physical work, shoveling and hauling wood, but I didn't lose any weight.  My Mom is a great influence though.  She's maintained her ideal weight for some time now.  She's also been a great example of how to eat properly, and is even better since she was diagnosed with diabetes and became dependent on daily insulin injections.

And I may be on my way to becoming diabetic myself.  I had some blood work done last week (on the one day I was home between trips to Ontario).  The blood work was supposed to be follow up from my pre-New Year's Eve fibroid episode, but the Dr also wanted to get a fasting  blood sugar level since we had discussed me being over weight and wanting to get in better shape.  While we were in Ontario the office called to set up an appointment to discuss the results.  When I called them back they said that it was to discuss my glucose level. 

Mom did test my blood sugar on her meter one morning before I ate and it was 5.6, well within the acceptable range for a fasting level.  It will be interesting to see what it was at the clinic.  Either way, I'm going to try and watch my sugar intake as well as my overall calorie count each day.  I say that with the lure of a Cinnabon calling me from the counter.  I did so well today with food choices, but now of course I'm hungry and made the mistake of buying them, supposedly for Hilary and Liam.  I KNOW that I have no will power, and I need to stop setting myself for failure.

The Dr appointment is Monday morning so I guess I will have more answers and directions then.  I also need to get back to exercising.  I did a lot of walking today while out doing errands, so it's a start.  A small start, but I'll take it. 

Weigh in and Dr appt

I weighed in a 246 Sunday morning. I thought for sure that I would have gained, given the horrible week I had.  So overall, I'm putting this one in the win column. 8 pounds to go to get to my first goal of losing 10 pounds!

I had my follow up appointment with my family doctor today to review the test results from the ER.  There is only 1 fibroid and it is small, 1.5 cm on the posterior wall of my uterus.  The doctor doesn't think that it was the cause of the pain, but simply coincidence that they found it during the CAT scan.  She suspects that the pain has no diagnosable cause, and as long as it doesn't happen again, there isn't anything to be done.

The CAT scan also showed that I had gallstones.  I had suspected this for awhile as I get these horrible bursts of pain right in that area every now and then.  And same thing, nothing medical to be done about it right now, unless it becomes severe.  She did say to watch my diet for fatty foods as that can aggravate gallstones.

Which brought us to the weight loss portion of the appointment.  She calculated my BMI to be 36:

BMI is between 35-39.99 (Obese Class 2)

If you have a BMI of 35-39.99 your risk of weight-related health problems and even death, is severe. 

She would like me to get down to at least 200 lbs, but ideally she wants me to be around 180 (which still puts me at Overweight on the BMI scales).    She's recommending that Hilary and I join Weight Watchers - me to lose weight and Hilary because she does all the shopping/cooking and for moral support.  Hilary and I are so not joiners!  I think we will keep trying this on our own, and if after a month I'm not seeing any decent improvement, then we will look into joining a program.

It really is time to hunker down and get serious about this getting fit business. Up until now it’s been something that I’ve been aware of, especially when I’m out of breath from climbing a flight of stairs, or not able to play with Liam the way I want to. But none of that seemed to give me the motivation that I needed. Sure I had lost about 10 pounds early in 2010, but without CONSTANT VIGILANCE I slipped off the wagon and was sitting under it munching on cookies. The thought of getting healthy would creep into my consciousness every now and then, but was easily shooed away.

Well last Thursday gave me the motivation. After a week of cramps and general discomfort that I attributed to a heavy period, I started feeling worse around 6:00 PM when we were out for dinner. I wanted to buy a new camera afterwards, so I pushed the pain aside and carried on. During the bus ride home, things continued to get worse, but I still convinced myself that I was fine and it would pass. By the 3 block walk home from the bus stop, I was nearly in tears. But I was alone with Liam as Hilary had stopped off to pick up her asthma prescription. I didn’t want to scare Liam and I really didn’t want to make a scene at the side of the road, even though all I really wanted to do was curl up in a ball and cry. Liam was a trooper! He held my hand, talked reassuringly to me – “just a little bit further Mama”, “pretend it’s like getting the flu shot and don’t think about the hurt, think about something happy” – all the way home. He sat outside the bathroom door while I doubled over in pain and let the tears and yelps of pain come. Once Hilary got home and I realized that I could not just walk this off, I admitted defeat and we headed to the ER. Our amazing friend Sandy drove us, then brought Liam home with her once we saw how long the wait was going to be. It was a good call since I ended up being there for 18 hours!

After all the tests and the waiting and the poking, I left with a diagnosis of uterine fibroids. By the time I actually saw a doctor (at 5:00 in the morning) the pain had started to fade on its own. I was pain free for 2 days, but now the feeling of pressure and cramping is starting up again. I have an appointment to see my family doctor next Monday so that we can start the discussions of what this means and what can be done. Because I don’t know that I could survive pain like that again.

All of this left me with the knowledge that I need to get in better shape. Being overweight can be a cause of fibroids, and really, I’m just not healthy over all. So I need to concentrate on the whole – weight, exercise, mental and emotional health. In the past, I’ve only ever concerned myself with weight and calorie control. I would exercise a bit as a means of losing weight, but never with any sort of regularity. It’s a bit of a vicious circle – I need to exercise to lose weight and get healthy, but I feel that I can’t exercise till I lose weight and get healthier.

I’m back to tracking my food and calories, as I find that if I don’t write it down and keep track of it, I very easily get into the habit of snacking and eating too much. I’m actually not finding it that hard to cut down my calories to the 1800 mark, and I am making better choices – fruit vs. cookies – but I also don’t feel like I’m denying myself anything. The 100 calorie cookies and chocolate bar snacks are the best inventions ever!

Now I need to find away to be more active. I’m trying to walk at lunch every day, weather permitting. But once I get home at 5:30, I’m wiped! The idea of going for a walk or working out is overwhelming. I don’t have a solution to this, but I’m going to try!